Some Nights

     Some nights I want nothing more than to feel the pain against my skin. I need to feel it take my breath away and take me screaming back to reality with a screeching halt. I need my anger, sadness, and frustration to go away. Inflicting pain seems to be the fastest, most effective way to do this.

     I would do so much more if I wouldn't get caught. If  no one ever had  to find out I would have scars up and down my arms. I've always loved scars. Loved what they symbolized. Concrete evidence of where I had been and what I was feeling. But I can't have scars up and down my arms. I have two conflicting sides in me. I just want to do it, but I can't have anyone know. Arms are too noticeable. People would see them and ask questions. Tell me that it wasn't normal and something was wrong. Maybe they would be right.

     Not that I ever got that intense. Really only scrapes or burns. But if I could, sometimes I think I could use something sharper, something more permanent. Something that would leave an actual mark and an actual scar. Not the faded trace of a scar that only I can see. I can only see one, although there are more. Though those ones seem to have faded away forever. 

     I don't use anything but rubber bands now. That's what the therapist told me to do. They don't leave a permanent mark. Only for a few days. Still hard to explain away though. If someone saw them I would have to admit that I never learned how to cope. That therapy didn't help. It just gave me a way to bring myself back without an lasting evidence. Supposedly better than "self injuring". But how is it better? Isn't it just a different way? A way that makes me look more normal? A way that doesn't reveal that there is a problem to begin with? 

     I never got over it. It is still something that I feel the need to do. It is my most effective way of coping. Sure writing helps sometimes. But there are times when I need that sharpness, that quick snap, the pain shooting up my arm. Those are times that there is too much going on to write. Times when writing won't bring me back. Sometimes I wish no one could see. That the scars that I would create would be for my eyes only. Because my fears of getting caught and being an outcast in society are the only thing keeping me from having scars up and down my arms. 

     If other people could see them then they would know something was wrong. It would be written right in front of them for the world to see. And I'm not ready to admit that something is wrong yet. I don't know what it is. I'm not ready to admit that I might not be normal, and not in a good way. I'm not ready to admit that something may have snapped in me when I was 16 and it hasn't been right since. I'm not ready to admit that the pain is like a punishment in my own twisted way. I don't want people to know that I'm not okay.